At the Top of the Mountain
by Leafdiaries
Summary: Preparing to retire from his work as an official, Ensei's last duty takes him back to his childhood home in Sa Province. Written for Saiun Challenge prompt "Changing Leaves." Ensei, Shuurei, OC, Ginjirou


When his horse crested the hill, Ensei breathed in the warm wind that brushed his face, and he drew his mount to a halt. With the slant of a smile on his lips, he closed his eyes and let the scents of the forest fill their long-neglected place inside him.

Life had whisked by like a hummingbird, its small, frantic commotion briefly noticed and then forgotten as it moved on. He counted the years since he had last visited Sa Province, but gave up when the weight of the piled-up days dragged down his usually buoyant spirit.

"Too long," he apologized to the trees, the playmates of his youth, who had also grown and aged while he was away. He tapped his heels into his horse's sides, and the mount sauntered forward casually. _No reason to rush now,_ Ensei thought with a wistful sigh.

As his last task as Minister of Public Works before he retired, Ensei embarked with his oldest son, Shuusei, and youngest daughter, Seira, on a national tour to inspect the condition of the country's major infrastructure. Of his nine children, those two had shown great promise as court officials, especially his daughter, who scored at the rank of Bougen in the national exams.

_Takes after her mother_, he snickered to himself, but straightened in the saddle at the unyielding sense of pride he felt in his family.

It no longer even occurred to him to remember that none of his children were biologically his, but rather orphans or otherwise unwanted children of the state. Among his wife's proudest achievements at court had been the establishment of a foster parenting system for abandoned children. Ensei claimed some credit for the idea when he showed up at home after a trip to the provinces with an additional piece of baggage on his horse—a small boy whom he had found in a jail cell during an inspection, arrested for pickpocketing. Something about the boy's wild, blue-green eyes reminded him of another abandoned boy he'd known long ago, so he paid his fine and took the boy home. As expected, Shuurei bustled the boy into their lives and bullied him into growing up a proper young man.

Soon after they adopted their first son, Ensei noticed the determined set of his wife's warm eyes, and he knew something major percolated in the pressure cooker of her overactive brain. As she gathered more information about conditions for abandoned children, the number of those children at their dinner table increased until no more would fit. One night, as they sat at dinner and Shuurei passed another bowl of her delicious rice to Ensei, his sixth, she raised her voice over the din of noisy kids seated around them and proposed to save all the abandoned children of Saiunkoku.

As an orphan himself, Ensei had to struggle to choke back deep emotions while he listened to her outlandish and remarkable idea. Her bold courage, her sense of justice and her unbreakable faith in human goodness consistently took his breath away, no matter how long they'd known each other. There she sat again, a tiny woman with a spirit larger than a nation, ladling out her simple rice and grand ideas. Long ago, he had committed himself to serving the person he admired most in the world, and as he smiled into her flashing, eager eyes, he renewed that promise. As they had done countless times before, they joined forces to overcome every obstacle until a lasting and successful program had been established throughout the country. As a woman unable to bear children of her own, Shuurei had become "mother" to thousands. Ensei had never fooled himself that Shuurei married him for love, not the way he loved her. Yet, he never doubted that she loved him in the most profound way she knew, and his love and admiration for her burned more brightly over time, even as his sight grew more dim.

He adjusted his stiff body on his horse's back and pressed his fingers into a nagging pain in his chest that no longer subsided, even with rest. He cursed himself for growing old. The court doctors had admonished him, yet again, for delaying his retirement from public life and "carrying on in a manner unbefitting an elder of his advanced age."

"My ass," he grumbled to the wind and snickered as he remembered the sound thrashing he'd dished out to the baby-faced doctor who'd dared to call him old. It was worth it, even if it cost him his dinner for the next three nights, on orders of a thoroughly pissed off Shuurei.

Still, even if he wouldn't admit it to anyone else, Ensei understood the ways of nature better than most, and he knew every living creature had its time upon the earth, himself included. Many of his friends had long since passed, and sake just didn't taste quite as good without Seiran at the table.

When he hugged Shuurei goodbye before he set out on this trip, her arms lingered around him longer than expected, and when he looked questioningly into her troubled face, he saw that she understood about nature too. No words had to be spoken between them. He touched the crimson rose in her silver hair and searched the big, brown eyes that looked at him as they always had, with understanding and affection, with gratitude and respect. He winked at her and his playful grin twisted up the scar on his weathered cheek.

"Come back to me," she whispered against his chest.

"It's a promise—Himesan," he answered and ruffled her hair, calling her by the nickname he hadn't used in years. She laughed and pushed him off to the journey she knew he had to make.

He hadn't been a wanderer for many years, hadn't even had the urge. The roots he had set down in the capital were deep and strong, and he felt at last that he belonged somewhere. Yet, as much as he traveled on official duty now, something else, something inexplicable and unavoidable had pulled him back to Sa Province, to this mountain, to his boyhood home.

As he passed the few familiar landmarks that remained unchanged despite the years—a giant boulder carved by wind and rain into the shape of a condor's beak, a canyon dug out by a roaring river—he noticed the broken remains of an old gate that consisted of a single, rotted post. He smirked at its sorry state of decay and his own sense of kinship with it. Many times as a child, he had shinnied up that post, racing against his friend who climbed the opposite post, which now no longer existed. Nothing else remained of the house where he had spent his blissful childhood among his happy and loving family. Barely even enough memories remained in his head to signify that that time ever existed at all.

Yet, one steadfast proof remained.

"I'll be damned," he muttered in disbelief and a broad grin broke out on his craggy face like a morning sunrise against the mountain tops.

He hauled himself slowly out of his saddle, pausing to stretch his legs and back before he crossed the uneven ground in halting steps. He held up his hand and brushed his leathered palm, hardened and cracked by years of work and battle, across the lush, green leaves of a plum tree hung heavy with its summer fruit. A few white petals clung stubbornly to the branches, evidence of the late spring bloom. He caressed them with his fingertips as gently as he touched his children's faces.

"Stand fast, intruder!" called a squeaky, but determined young voice in the distance.

Ensei drew his hand away from the tree and craned his neck to find the source of the voice. His eyebrows shot up when he saw a small, barefoot boy, all of six or seven years old, approaching him cautiously and wielding a heavy branch like a sword.

"Ho there, soldier! I mean no harm," Ensei called back, holding his hands up. "I'm only a hungry traveler and thought I might help myself to a plum. Is this your tree?"

"Ha! You can't own a tree," the boy laughed in derision at the obviously stupid stranger. He lowered his sword, dragging it in the dirt as he came closer to the giant he had bested with his fine and foreboding speech. He was thankful he hadn't had to use his sword after all. He couldn't wait to brag about his victory to his friends, but he wanted to get a closer look at the giant, so he could tell the story in great detail.

"You won't mind if I help myself then?" Ensei asked, jerking his thumb at the tree.

"I don't mind, but Umetarou doesn't like to share," the boy explained.

"Ume… Did you say Umetarou?" Ensei paused breathlessly with his fingers on a large, heavy plum.

"Uh-huh. That's his name," the boy added and pointed at the tree.

"Is that so?" Ensei muttered and felt the air constrict in his chest. "How do you know?"

"It's right there!" the boy stated in exasperation at having to explain so many obvious things to the not-so-bright giant. He pointed to a few slashes carved low on the trunk of the tree. "You can read, can't you?"

"Sure I can read," Ensei fought to hold back his grin at the boy's doubtful expression.

"Me too. Watch me," the boy said eagerly and pointed to the slash marks on the bark. "U-me-ta-rou. See!"

"Hey, that's pretty good!" Ensei clapped the boy on his shoulder.

"Now you!" the boy pointed at the marks again, grinning broadly up at the giant, his two front teeth missing.

Ensei groaned as he bent down on one knee and rubbed his trembling fingers over the marks he'd made himself when he was five years old. "U-me-ta-rou," he repeated in a quiet voice and felt more than saw the symbols.

"Hey, are you crying?" the boy leaned down to look at Ensei's face. "Hey," he urged and nudged the big shoulder next to him. He glanced around anxiously. "You'll get a whipping if the other boys see you crying. Well, I won't let them hit you."

Ensei laughed through his tears and wiped his face on his sleeve. He turned to sit on the ground and brace his back against the tree that had grown thicker around the middle, just as he had, since the last time they'd been together.

"Thanks a lot. You're a pal," Ensei said with an appreciative nod to the boy as he took a bite out of the plum and moaned at the sweetness of memories long forgotten.

"It's ok. I'm the boss. They do what I say or I give 'em hell," the boy said with a shrug and licked his lips as his eyes followed every movement of the plum in Ensei's hand.

"Why don't you have one?" he asked the boy, gesturing with the dripping fruit.

"Ah, Umetarou doesn't share with me," he answered and stabbed his branch sword into the dirt in frustration.

"Why not? He shared with me?" Ensei said and took another bite, unable to resist the temptation to taunt the little tough guy that reminded him too much of himself at that age.

"I guess…I guess he only likes giants," the boy muttered and craned his neck to look up at the luscious fruit dangling out of his reach.

"Giants? Oh, I get it," he nodded. "Well, come here. Let's trick Umetarou."

"Trick him? How?" the boy scratched the side of his head and eyed the old giant suspiciously.

Ensei leaned toward the boy and whispered, "If you climb up on my knees and act like a giant, Umetarou will be so scared, he'll drop his plums faster than you can catch them! I'd be surprised if he doesn't jump up and run off!"

"Tch, trees can't run. Are all giants as dumb as you?" the boy asked, planting his hands on his hips.

"Eh, I've been told I'm dumber than most," Ensei grinned sheepishly and scratched his head, his hair as thick and untamed as ever, but now as white as the plum blossom petals. "One thing I do know about, though, is food. You can take my word on that." He added a pat to the rounded paunch over his middle as proof that he never missed a meal, so the boy shrugged and stepped up in front of the old giant.

"Give me your hands and step up on my kneecaps," Ensei instructed and couldn't contain a low laugh as the boy balanced his dirty feet on the wide knees as steady as boulders. Small hands braced themselves on Ensei's shoulders and then on his head, grabbing handfuls of hair for steadiness and dragging painful moans of complaint between belly laughs from the old giant. He held the child around the waist and the boy straightened up to his full height, his head disappearing between the branches.

"WOW!" the boy exclaimed. "I can see everything! I can almost reach the top of the tree!"

"Now, tell Umetarou to give you his plums. Or else!" Ensei instructed in a gruff voice.

"Oh yeah! All right, Umetarou," the boy commanded, copying Ensei's threatening tone. "You hand over the plums or you'll face this giant's wrath!"

"Two giants!" Ensei added, looking up at the boy wiggling unsteadily on him.

"Right! You hear that, Umetarou!" the boy continued his terrifying tone. "We giants are hungry, so you give up the plums or give up your life!"

The leaves all around the boy's head began to tremble, the rustling noise drowning out any other sound. Wide eyes swiveled around at the shaking branches and the wildly bobbing fruit. First, one plum broke loose, and then another. The boy heard thump after thump as plums fell to the ground. He reached as high as he could, leaning up on his toes, and snatched a plum from the highest branch, immediately sinking his teeth into his prize. Tangy juice dribbled down his chin.

"Hey, is it raining up there?" Ensei called up in annoyance, having been splattered with the plum juice that dripped from the boy's lips. He stopped bumping his back against the tree trunk to shake the fruit loose when the pressure in his chest had grown too tight. The leaves stilled their noisy shivering.

"Woo-hoo!" the boy howled and clambered down as he had climbed up, slipping and grabbing at Ensei's hair and face and shoulders, landing a bony knee in the old man's chest. "We did it! Look at all the plums! Ho-ho! Wait until my friends see!"

Ensei bellowed his laughter between groans as he rubbed his chest and slumped back against the tree, worn out with the little boy's energy.

"I guess you taught this stubborn, old tree a lesson, eh?" Ensei winked and drew deep breaths, pissed that he was winded just sitting down. Maybe he was the one that learned the lesson, he conceded to himself.

"You look tired, Giant," the boy remarked and pushed bristled, white hair out of the old man's face. "You stay here and I'll go home and get my friends. They're gonna want to meet you!"

"Home?" Ensei asked, glancing around for any sign of a dwelling.

"Ya, we all live in a house together just over that hill. All my friends live there, and Sensei takes care of us," the child explained. "Promise me you won't leave, ok?"

"It's a promise," he grinned back at the small, eager face.

Ensei watched the boy running away, powered by all the breakneck vitality of youth. He yearned with every fiber of his old body to be that boy again, to gulp the misty mountain air, to skin his knees and elbows on the branches and boulders of the great wilderness, to climb Umetarou again and steal his first sweet tastes of life. He looked up and the sunlight flitted through Umetarou's gently stirring leaves.

"Thanks for that, my friend," he said to the tree who was his first friend, who listened to his toddler-sized troubles until adult-sized ones dragged him away from his happy youth.

His eyes traveled around the area and rested on a beautiful house with wide walks and gardens bursting with color. His mother's gentle face peeked up over the flowers and she smiled and waved at him. She beckoned to him and stood waiting. His father walked up behind his mother, towering over her, his shoulders broad and his smile wide. Distantly familiar faces joined theirs in the garden—ah, right—his brothers and sisters waved to him. Ensei moved to get up, but the pain in his chest tightened and he slumped back.

"Ow…sorry…I can't go with you this time either," he whispered to his family sadly, but still they waited, smiling.

"Ensei," a deep, growling voice spoke very near him.

"Ginjirou! Old man! I thought you'd be…"

"Master's waiting for us," said a great silver wolf standing by his knee.

"Master Nan? Is he here too?" Ensei squinted but he could barely make out anything but Ginjirou's long snout.

"He's making dinner, but you know he'll eat it all if you don't beat him to it," the wolf warned.

"Eh, that old man! Well, we'd better get moving then. I'm starving!" Ensei exclaimed and jumped to his feet, scratching Ginjirou behind his ear. The wolf led the man, who now walked with a familiar spring in his step, toward the garden. The arms of his mother wrapped around him, his father clapped him on his broad shoulder that no longer slumped and small hands grabbed his thick fingers.

"Ensei's big!" said his younger brother, barely old enough to walk on his own. "Horsey-ride! Horsey-ride!" the boy called and tugged at his leg.

Just then, Ensei remembered his son and daughter back at the hotel at the bottom of the mountain, whom he had given the slip that morning as he snuck out for his solitary adventure. He recalled his promise to the boy to wait for him to return with his friends. He remembered Shuurei.

He pulled away from his family with imploring eyes the color of cornflowers and turned to Ginjirou.

"I've never let Shuurei down before," he explained anxiously and glanced over at the plum tree and the old man sitting slumped over and still beneath it. "I promised her I'd come back."

"You won't let her down," the wolf replied and walked up beside Ensei. He nuzzled his snout in the palm of the strong, young hand that brushed against his fur. Ensei looked around him, but no one else was there and the fine house, his childhood home, was gone.

"Hey, where is everybody?" Ensei asked the wolf at his side.

"They're waiting for you," Ginjirou answered.

"Where?" he scratched the thick, dark hair tumbled over his forehead.

"At the top of the mountain," the wolf answered.

"Oh, ok. Hey, first one there eats first!" Ensei called in a high-pitched, squeaky laugh and took off running, with Ginjirou easily catching up to the boy's short strides and playfully nipping at his heels.


End file.
